“He gave you the pain-killer, dear,” said Olga soothingly.  “That was what made you well again.”

“The pain-killer!” Violet gazed at her bewildered.  “What is—­the pain-killer?” she said.

Olga shook her head.  “I don’t know what it is.  He wouldn’t tell me.  He calls it—­sudden death.”

Violet gave a great start.  “Good heavens, Allegro!  And he gave me that?”

“Only enough to make you sleep,” explained Olga.  “He gave me some the other day, when the heat upset me.  I liked it.”

Violet’s eyes were glittering very strangely.  “And you—­came back again after it?” she said.  “Allegro, are you—­sure?”

“Of course,” said Olga.  “I don’t know what you mean, dear.  Of course I came back, or I shouldn’t be here now.”

“No—­no, of course not!” Violet lay back in her chair, gazing straight up through the limes at the flawless August sky.  “So that is why I didn’t die,” she said.  “He only let me go—­half-way.  If I’d only had a little more—­a little more—­” She broke off suddenly and threw a quick side glance at Olga.  “What queer creatures doctors are!” she said.  “They spend their whole lives fighting, with the certainty that they are bound to be conquered in the end.”

“They are splendid!” said Olga, with shining eyes.

“Oh, do you think so?  I never can.  If they fought suffering only, it would be a different thing.  That I could admire.  But to fight death—­” Violet made a curious little gesture of the hands—­“it seems to me like tilting at a windmill,” she said.  “Everyone must die sooner or later.”

“But no one wants to go before his time,” observed a cool voice behind them.  “Or if he does, he’s a shirker and deserves to be kicked.”

Both girls started as Max strolled carelessly up, hands in pockets, and propped himself against a tree close by.

His eyes travelled over Olga’s face as he did so.  “You’ve been overheated,” he remarked.

She pulled her hat forward with a nervous jerk.  “Who can help it this weather?”

He grunted disapproval.  “You never see me in that condition.  Pray continue your oration, Miss Campion!  It was not my intention to interrupt.”

But Violet had suddenly reopened her book and buried herself therein.

Max twisted his neck and peered over.  After a brief space he grunted again and relaxed against the tree.

“Do you read French?” Olga asked, feeling the silence to be slightly oppressive.

He laughed drily.  “Not that sort.  I have no taste for it.”

“But you know the language?” Olga persisted, still striving against silence.

“I’ve studied it,” said Max.  He paused a moment; then, “The best fellow I ever knew was a Frenchman,” he said.

She looked up at him, caught by something in his tone.  “A friend of yours?”

He took off his hat with a reverence which she would have deemed utterly foreign to his nature.  “Yes, a friend,” he said.  “Bertrand de Montville.”